Most Americans Want E-Cigarettes Regulated Like Tobacco

The majority of Americans want to regulate e-cigarettes just as strictly as tobacco cigarettes and almost half want vaping banned in restaurants.

The latest Gallup poll is a mixed bag for vapers, with 60 percent favoring regulating e-cigarettes like tobacco and another 19 percent saying e-cigarettes should be regulated, but not as much as tobacco. Seventeen percent of Americans said they didn’t think e-cigs should be regulated at all.

Adults who smoke and the 19 percent who have tried e-cigarettes were less likely to favor tougher regulation of vapor products.

E-cigarette advocates argue they are key to helping smokers quit and vaping is much safer than smoking. According to Gallup, most Americans agree:

While one in three say e-cigarettes are just as bad as tobacco cigarettes for someone’s health, the majority either say e-cigarettes are less harmful to one’s health than tobacco cigarettes (48 percent) or are not harmful to personal health at all (11 percent). Current tobacco cigarette smokers and those who have tried e-cigarettes are, not surprisingly, less likely than U.S. adults overall to say e-cigarettes are just as harmful as tobacco cigarettes.

Despite a growing amount of literature showing e-cigarettes can be instrumental in helping smokers quit, just 14 percent of people polled said they are useful while 28 percent said they had no effect at all.

When it comes to the use of e-cigarettes in public places, a large portion of Americans would like to see vaping relegated to the same spaces that many smokers have been forced to take refuge.

Luckily for vapers, this section of the public doesn’t yet constitute a majority. A little under half of those polled said they wanted e-cigarettes banned from restaurants and 29 percent wanted them banned from public parks.